Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

by the nearness of death, his survival instinct had thrown some switch

deep within his brain. He had but one thought nowsurvive!

At sixty-five hundred feet the nightmare began. With no one to fly the

plane while he jumped, the pilot decided to kill his engines as a safety

measure. Only one engine c<)operated. The other, its cylinders red-hot

from the long flight from Aalborg, continued to ignite the fuel mixture.

He throttled back hard until the engine died, losing precious seconds,

then he wrestled the canopy open.

He could not get out of the cockpit! Like an invisible iron hand the

wind pinned him to the back panel. Desperately he tried to loop the

plane, hoping to drop out as it turned over, but centrifugal force,

unforgiving, held him in his seat.

When enough blood had rushed out of his brain, he blacked out.

Unaware of anything around him, the pilot roared toward oblivion.

By the time he regained consciousness, the aircraft stood on its tail,

hanging motionless in space. In a millisecond it would fall like two

tons of scrap steel.

With one mighty flex of his knees, he jumped clear.

As he fell, his brain swirled with visions of the Reichminister's chute

billowing open in the dying light, floating peacefully toward a mission

that by now had failed.

His own chute snapped open with a jerk. In the distance he saw a shower

of sparks; the Messerschmitt had found the earth.

He broke his left ankle when he hit the ground, but surging adrenaline

shielded his mind against the pain. Shouts of alarm echoed from the

darkness. Struggling to free himself from the harness, he surveyed by

moonlight the small farm at the edge of the field in which he had

landed. Before he could see much of anything, a man appeared out of the

darkness. It was the head plowman of the farm, a man named David

McLean. The Scotsman approached cautiously and asked the pilot his

name. Struggling to clear his stunned brain, the pilot searched for his

cover name. When it came to him, he almost laughed aloud.

Confused, he gave the man his real name instead. What the hell?

he thought. I don't even exist anymore in Germany. Heydrich saw to

that.

"Are you German?" the Scotsman asked.

"Yes," the pilot answered in English.

Somewhere among the dark hills the Messerschmitt finally exploded,

lighting the sky with a momentary flash.

"Are there any more with you?" the Scotsman asked nervously.

"From the plane?"

The pilot blinked, trying to take in the enormity of what he had

done-and what he had been ordered to do. The cyanide capsule still lay

like a viper against his chest. "No," he said firmly. "I flew alone."

The Scotsman seemed to accept this readily"I want to go to Dungavel

Castle," the pilot said. Somehow, in his confusion, he could not-or

would not-abandon his original mission. "I have an important message

for the Duke of Hamilton," he added solemnly.

"Are you armed?" McLean's voice was tentative.

"No. I have no weapon."

The farmer simply stared. A shrill voice from the darkness finally

broke the awkward silence. "What's happened?

Who's out there?"

"A German's landed!" McLean answered. "Go get some soldiers."

Thus began a strange pageant of uncertain hospitality that would last

for nearly thirty hours. From the McLeans' humble living room-where the

pilot was offered tea on the family's best china-to the local Home Guard

hut at Busby, he continued to give the name he had offered the plowman

upon landing-his own. It was obvious that no one knew what to make of

him. Somehow, somewhere, something had gone wrong. The pilot had

expected to land inside a cordon of intelligence officers; instead he'd

been met by one confused farmer. Where were the stern-faced young

operatives of mI-5? Several times he repeated his request to be taken

to the Duke of Hamilton, but from the bare room at Busby he was taken by

army truck to Maryhill Barracks at Glasgow.

At Maryhill, the pain of his broken ankle finally burned through his

shock. When he.mentioned it to his captors, they transferred him to the

military hospital at Buchanan Castle, about twenty miles south of

Glasgow- It was there, nearly thirty hours after the unarmed

Messerschmitt first crossed the Scottish coast, that the Duke of

Hamilton finally arrived to confront the pilot.

Douglas Hamilton looked as young apd dashing as the photograph in his SS

file. The Premier Peer of Scotland, an RAF wing commander and famous

aviator in his own right, Hamilton faced the tall German confidently,

awaiting some explanation. The pilot stood nervously, preparing to

throw himself on the mercy of the duke. Yet he hesitated.

What would happen if he did that? It was possible that there had simply

been a radio malfunction, that Hess was even now carrying out his secret

mission, whatever it was. Heydrich might blame him if Hess's mission

failed. And then, of course, his family would die. He could probably

save his family by committing suicide as ordered, but then his child

would have no father. The pilot studied the duke's face.

Hamilton had met Rudolf Hess briefly at the Berlin Olympics, he knew.

What did the duke see now? Fully expecting to be thrown into chains,

the pilot requested that the officer accompanying the duke withdraw from

the room. When he had gone, the pilot took a step toward Hamilton, but

said nothing.

The duke stared, stupefied. Though his rational mind resisted it, the

first seeds of recognition had been planted in his brain. The haughty

bearing ... the dark, heavy-browed patrician face ... Hamilton could

scarcely believe his eyes.

And despite the duke's attempt to conceal his astonishment, the pilot

saw everything in an instant. The dizzying hope of a condemned man who

has glimpsed deliverance surged through him. My God! he thought. It

could still work! And why not? It's what I have trained to do for five

years!

The duke was waiting. Without further hesitation-and out of courage or

cowardice, he would never know-the pilot stepped away from the iron

discipline of a decade.

"I am Reichminister Rudolf Hess," he said stiffly. "Deputy Fuhrer of

the German Reich, leader of the Nazi Party."

With classic British reserve, the duke remained impassive.

"I cannot be sure if that is true," he said finally.

Hamilton had strained for skepticism, but in his eyes the pilot

discerned a different reaction altogether-not disbelief, but shock.

Shock that Adolf Hitler's deputy-arguably the second most powerful man

in Nazi Germany-stood before him now in a military hospital in the heart

of Britain! That shock was the very sign of Hamilton's acceptance!

I am Reichminister Rudolf Hess! With a single lungful of air the

frightened pilot had transformed himself into the most important

prisoner of war in England. His mind reeled, drunk with the reprieve.

He no longer thought of the man who had parachuted from the

Messerschmitt before him.

Hess's signal had not come, but no one else knew that. No one but Hess,

and he was probably dead by now. The pilot could always claim he had

received a garbled signal, then simply proceeded with his mission as

ordered. No one could lay the failure of Hess's mission at his door.

The pilot closed his eyes in relief. Sippenhaft be damned! No one

would kill his family without giving him a chance to explain.

By taking this gamble-the only chance he could see of survival-the